Redraw problem when overlapping components

Question

As part of a project to automatically generate a GUI for a legacy application I found a problem that occures when I have to overlap JComponents (have to - because the basic layout is given by the legacy application). The following code demonstrates the problem:
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Overlap
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        JFrame frame=new JFrame("test");
        JTextField text1=new JTextField("text1");
        JTextField text2=new JTextField("text2");
        JLabel label=new JLabel("LabelTest");
        label.setOpaque(true);
        Container content=frame.getContentPane();
        content.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
        GridBagConstraints c=new GridBagConstraints();
        c.gridx=c.gridy=1;
        c.gridwidth=2;
        c.fill=GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
        content.add(label, c);
        c=new GridBagConstraints();
        c.gridx=c.gridy=c.gridwidth=1;
        c.fill=GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
        content.add(text1, c);
        c=new GridBagConstraints();
        c.gridx=2;
        c.gridy=c.gridwidth=1;
        c.fill=GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
        content.add(text2, c);
        frame.setVisible(true);
        frame.pack();
}This gives a JFrame with a JLabel over two JTextField's - the JTextField's shoud be invisible. Actually you have a blinking cursor, the text of both JTextField's is selectable with the mouse, you are able to switch the focus between the JTextField's with the mouse ...
Is there a way to force correct Z-order handling in this case?
Tested with linux JDK 1.4, with 1.3 and 1.2 the initial drawing is done correctly but you are still able to select the JTextField's with the mouse.

Answer 1

try to explain what you whant to doMh - as I said - it is a cooked down version of the problem. Imagine a 80x25 GridBagLayout (the base of this problem is a form based text mode application) with up to about 500 separate widgets in it. The problem now is that it is possible that some of these widgets overlap some others. So it is possible to place a label like widget over something that behaves like a textfield.
Z order of a component is best made by using
JLayeredPane objects can be added to the same layer
but there will be problems if they overlapIn the case of JLayeredPane I think need to optimize the usage of them - when I take one for each widget then I'm sure I'm running out of the design specifications. But then I've to detect overlapping by myself.
All this is a bit strange because there already is a Z-order defined when adding all this to one single JPanel - is the actual behaviour a swing bug or am I running out of the specified limits even there?